Stocks End Higher; Banks Rise, Materials Fall

Stocks ended higher amid light volume for a second straight day Thursday following a pair of upbeat economic reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28.23 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 10,415.24, led by Alcoa , JPMorgan and Johnson & Johnson , after rising half a percent in the previous session.

The S&P 500 gained 5.31 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 1,104.18. And the Nasdaq rose 7.33 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,236.20. TheCBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, fell below 23.

Most key S&P sectors finished higher, led by financials, health care and telecom, while materials was down.

Although growth is expected to be slow, this is a good chance for investors to buy into some high quality companies, said Sarat Sethi, partner and portfolio manager at Douglas C. Lane & Associates.

“Investors can really create a diversified portfolio with a bunch of stocks that we haven’t been able to buy in the last decade that not only have exposure to the U.S. but all across emerging markets,” Sethi told CNBC.

McDonald's was the biggest decliner on the Dow after the fast-food chain reported its same-store sales rose 4.6 percentin August but fell short of analyst expectations amid soft sales in Europe.

Financials were among the leaders but pared their gains following news that Deutsche Bank is trying to raise as much as 9 billion euros ($11.4 billion) through a stock sale, according to reports from Bloomberg. The German bank tumbled more than 3 percent.

But both Bank ofAmerica and Goldman Sachs finished higher. Goldman was fined $27 million by the UK's Financial Services Authority for not notifying British authorities of an investigation in the U.S.

Google gained after the company launched "Google Instant,"a tool aimed at speeding up search results.

Sony was up following news that the entertainment giant will create several animated series based on Marvel characters, including Iron Man, X-Men and Blade. Marvel is a unit of Disney .

Research In Motion rose even after an analyst at BGC Partners initiated coverage of the BlackBerry maker with a "sell" rating, citing that the firm's core strengths of security, keyboard, compression and battery life have a "diminishing appeal to both consumer and enterprise customers."

National Semi shares were flat ahead of earnings from the chip maker, due out after the bell today. And Texas Instruments rose ahead of the semiconductor giant's mid-quarter update expected after the closing bell. Analysts will be looking for signs of how chip demand is holding up.

Other industrials were mixed with Alcoa up, even after HSBC cut its price target on the aluminum maker to $12 from $14. Boeing fell.

Oil prices fell 42 cents to settle at $74.25 a barrelafter seesaw trading as investors shrugged off a government oil inventory report that showed crude supplies unexpectedly fell last week.

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Teva Pharmaceuticals was upgraded to "outperform" from "perform" at Oppenheimer.

And Stifel Nicolaus started coverage of Amgen with a "buy" rating.

On the M&A front, French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis said it has not raised its offer for Genzyme , which remains at $18.5 billion, or $69 a share.

Meanwhile, 3M said it will buy Arizant, a company that makes heating blankets used to regulate the body temperature of patients undergoing surgery, for $810 million. This is 3M's third acquisition in about a month.

And there's buzz that 7-Eleven has made an offer of $40 a sharefor Midwest convenience-store chain Casey's.

Skechers plunged more than 12 percent after Susquehanna downgraded the firm to "neutral" from "positive." Shares of other specialty shoe makers including Crocs and Deckers Outdoor also tumbled.

Elsewhere in the retail sector, Toys 'R Us unwrapped plans to vastly expand its reach this Christmas by adding 600 "pop-up" stores, more than 260 Toy 'R Us shops within Babies 'R Us stores—and an additional eight outlet stores.

Treasurys slipped after the government auctioned $13 billion of 30-year bonds, which had a high yield of 3.820 percent and a bid-to-cover of 2.73.

In the day's economic news, new jobless claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to a two-month low last week to 451,000. Economists had expected a more modest drop to 470,000.

However, investors grew cautious after a Labor Department official said that nine states didn’t file their claims data to the Labor Department for the latest reporting week because of Monday's Labor Day holiday. As a result, California and Virginia estimated their figures and the government approximated the other seven, the official said.

In addition, trade deficit narrowed more than expected in July as exports hit their highest level since August 2008.

Volume is low again, given the Jewish New Year holiday, Rosh Hashanah.